Billy West Spills the Beans, Futurama Still Alive?

During MetaCon in Downtown Minneapolis on Saturday evening, I strolled into a panel called “Becoming Philip J Fry: A Futurama Panel.” This was a fascinating discussion hosted by Billy West himself, the voice of Philip J. Fry, Dr. Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, and more of Futurama’s zany cast of characters. I’ve written much on this panel already, but there’s one thing in particular that caught my ear.

See, as Futurama fans all know, the show has been cancelled once again, and the final episode is set to air on Wednesday, September 4. While it seems like this could finally be the last time, West doesn’t think so. Here’s the quote from West himself:

I was so emotional when I went to Comic-Con and we had to basically say goodbye, and thank you, and heartfelt thanks. For once in my life, I didn’t feel like being a smartass and making up witty, clever, pithy things to say. I couldn’t. I was too emotional…

When I went up to Matt [Groening] that day, I said, “Hey man, listen. I just hope that I gave you way more than you ever expected. That was only what I really wanted to do.” And I said, “Thank you for the great opportunity.” The whole time, he’s not listening to me. He’s going, “Don’t, don’t give up yet.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “We’re talking to everybody.” And I said, “Really?”

And he couldn’t tell me the specifics of this, but he looked at me and says, “We’re going to do more.”

And I was like, wow, you know? I’ll take him at his word. There’s no reason for him to fib to me. And I took it for real, and I know that he’s got something planned.

West isn’t much of a rule follower (which is one of the things I love about the man), and this wouldn’t be the first time he spilled the beans on the resurrection of Futurama. Just earlier in the panel, he had delivered this anecdote about the show’s second revival:

Then a second time it happened, and I announced it before it was supposed to be announced. I’m on my website, you know, tapping away, and I go, “Oh, by the way, Futurama’s coming back. It’s gonna be thirteen new episodes and everything…”

And then David Cohen called me up and he says, “I hear you have a lot of traffic on your website.”

And I say, “Yeah, you know, I told them what you guys were telling me.” But they forgot to tell me don’t tell anybody.

If there’s even an inkling of truth to this, it’s fantastic news for Futurama fans. It’s just a show that, because of the adoration of its enthusiastic fan base, simply refuses to lie down and die. And that’s awesome.

That sure is Good News, Everyone! I’m neutral whether Futurama comes back or stay cancelled. It’s not like it didn’t have a good run. But I’d definitely love to see more adventures with Fry, Leela, and Bender.

If they do come back, I hope they don’t do too many episodes, like in the CC run.

The quality of some episodes kind of suffered, since they had too many episodes to do in under 2 years.